His entire legacy is built off two fukking games, one of which was a series where the pacers got blown out in game 7 anyway
Okay, now you're way undervaluing Reggie. He was the greatest shooter of his era. I loved watching him play. I know the two games you're referring to (the 8 in 9 game and the 25 in the fourth game) but he had plenty of other great games too, including a third against the Knicks I remember distinctly where he had like 11-13 points in the last 4 minutes.
The part I agree with is that a one-dimensional shooter is not a great bet for your lone superstar on a competitive team. People are talking about Ray Allen....but what was the best team that Ray Allen was ever the star of? How good would a team be with Klay Thompson as the star?
The current east outside of obviously Cleveland isn't any better than the Knicks or Pacers of the 90's who couldn't beat Chicago. I'd argue the Penny and Shaq Magic were easily better than anyone lebron has had to go through in the east over the last 5 years
The Raptors would kill the 1990s Knicks and Pacers, and they aren't even a top-5 team that Lebron has had to face. The second-best scorer on the Raptors is better than the best scorer on either of those teams, and Jonas Valanciunas/Demarre Carrol/Terrance Ross/Cory Joseph/Patrick Patterson form an unremarkable but solid supporting cast for Lowry/DeRozen.
Think about this. The Raptors have SIX guys who are shooting 36%+ from three, and DeRozen isn't even one of those, and they don't even rely on the three. You would have to put the 1997 Knicks/Pacers together into a superteam to match that.
Those Magic looked great on paper, but you have to remember how shallow they were, what awful coaching they had, and what babies Shaq and Penny were in the league. They hadn't hit 25 yet when that team broke up (shades of the 2012 Thunder). And in the 1996 ECF nearly everyone not named Shaq/Penny got hurt. Of the players who played all 4 games, ONLY TWO WHO AVERAGED MORE THAN 3.5 PPG IN THE SERIES. The starting lineup in Game 4 included Dennis Scott, Anthony Bowie, and an injured Jon Koncak, with Brooks Thompson, Donald Royal, and Jon Wolf as the only three guys to come off the bench. Shaq only took 13 shots in that game being guarded by Luc Longley...and the Magic still only lost by 5
The 1990s babies in here don't even know what the heck I just said. Damn, I forgot who the hell Brooks Thompson and Donald Royal were, and they combined for 20+ points in that game....Brooks Thompson was the 4th leading scorer on both teams combined.
Here's a SI writeup from 1996 about that series:
The series so lacked drama that, after Chicago held Orlando to 10 fourth-quarter points in its 86-67 victory in Saturday's Game 3, the only question left
was whether the Magic would be eliminated before all the members of center Shaquille O'Neal and point guard Anfernee (Penny) Hardaway's supporting cast were wearing supporting casts. Power forward Horace Grant had one on his left arm, thanks to the hyper-extended elbow he suffered in Game 1 that sidelined him for the rest of the series, and guard Nick Anderson left the O-rena after Game 3 with one on his right wrist, badly sprained in a fourth-quarter fall.
Jon Koncak, who took Grant's place in the starting lineup, played in Game 3 after a cortisone shot helped dull the pain in his injured left knee--if only temporarily. "I'm going to have a wonderful time getting out of bed tomorrow morning," he said after the game. Koncak wasn't the only one for whom rising from the sack was a dismal experience. Guard Brian Shaw was scratched for Game 3 when he woke up the day of the game with severe neck spasms. "When things like that happen," Hardaway said, "you can't help thinking that maybe it wasn't meant to be."
It got so bad for the Magic that even Chicago couldn't help but feel a touch of sympathy. "When I shook hands with [Orlando coach] Brian Hill before the game, I asked him what next could go wrong with his basketball team," Bulls coach Phil Jackson said after Game 3. "I guess he found out today." And when asked to assess the disheartened Magic's performance, most of the Chicago players tried to be tactful, particularly after their Game 3 victory in which they held Orlando to the second-fewest points in playoff history....
One question the Magic should ask itself is whether it is as passionate about winning a title as a championship team must be. Even given the Magic's injuries, the ease with which Chicago handled Orlando solidified the Magic's reputation as a team that is far more flash than substance. All the Little Pennys and Shaq Fus don't add up to a single championship ring.
That was the ONLY year that the Bulls beat the Magic (the year before they lost 4 games to 2 in the ECSF
with Jordan). Their lineup was so decimated that they basically had two capable NBA-level players, so you can't talk about that like it was some great victory.
You can't accuse me of shytting on the 1990s Magic, a team that took out the Jordan Bulls, when even the 1990s writers were shytting on the 1990s Magic.
This forum the only group of people I've heard of consistently hating 90's basketball
It was an expansion era. Six new teams in seven years. How could that possibly not dilute the talent?
Not to mention that the ballers of the 1990s were growing up in the 1970s, when basketball popularity was at a huge low, and then in the 1980s when the crack epidemic hit. And it was all before global popularity massively increased the talent pool. So how could they possibly have not had less talent?
Ya'all always have to rely on some sort of magic to explain how the 1980s/1990s could be more talented than today's era. Take a small talent pool and water it down quickly with a bunch of expansion teams, and you have a diluted product. That's obvious logic even before you start talking about a one-dimensional shooter being the best player on the team that challenged Jordan the hardest or a guy who looks at the ground when he dribbles being Jordan's biggest one-on-one competition.
And arguing against NBA legends to do so. And think they right. Cause YouTube highlights
Wilt and Russell hated against the 1980s and 1990s, and Oscar Robertson is always talking about how tough the early 1960s were when you can watch the tapes and see that the talent level was a complete joke. Old heads ALWAYS cape for their own era. It takes massive humility to admit that an improved product is better than you were.
